


Rhetoric

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 05:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8520859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Kylo thinks about the Generals he knows.





	

Hux’s voice blares through the speaker. It’s not like his usual, day to day voice. It’s more emotive: angry words in an angry tone. His inflection sharpens to Core-precise, and Kylo remembers the lessons from long ago. 

Listen to how they talk, as much as what they say. The speed, the word-choices, the vowel shifts, the imagery. Listen to how they _don’t_ talk. Watch their eyes, their hands, their shoulders, their nose, their mouth. 

He’d been taught to read his audience early, before it deepened to Force-sensitivity. “You won’t always be in the room, or able to touch their minds, Ben.”

She hadn’t known she had an advantage for almost twenty years, and so she’d honed her other skills at the hem of Senator and Queen. A politician and diplomat, and he’d understood from a young age that she could talk the talk with whoever. 

Except Han Solo. For some reason, her abilities with him didn’t work. Her calm, her repose (always layered over deep feeling anyway) turned loud and tense when she spoke with his father. He’d listened to her non-words then, but not understood how she could love him and hate him so much at once. 

Nothing was ever what it seemed. 

Hux’s accent, like the Empire of old, echoed the political lie at the heart of it. The Core stolen and warped to their own means. Order, they cried, when really they meant Command. His vitriol pours out all in spurious, emotional, overwhelmingly unjustified claims. He didn’t use facts or figures, just the brute force of terms, vague and menacing. 

Kylo sometimes wonders if Hux’s ideology even has those rational figures and arguments. He presents them often for his project decisions, but it feels like there’s a gap where a decision based in reason should be about the very basic position his whole belief system rests upon. 

He shouldn’t second guess. 

The speech draws to a close, and Kylo listens to silence. 

He hadn’t felt the surety in his mother’s heart, either. She’d said one thing and felt another. Lied. Lied to him, to Han, to herself. Sent him to his uncle without being sure it would even work. 

Listen, she’d said. 

He’d listened to her, and he’d heard fear in her. Fear, that led to the Dark Side. 

He wonders what the two Generals would think of the other. What would they say, if they tried to win each other over? 

He can hear her voice, but he can’t imagine the words. Not really. Just the sense of indignant rage, honed by politesse. It’s strange, hearing her in Hux. She’d hate it, and so would he.


End file.
